Topic: Notebook

[hackalive]

I have a mates son going to Univeristy in AUstralia soon to do a double degree in Computer Science and Computer Systems Engineering, what is the best notebook for this kind of couse and for a programmer, a Mac book Pro?

[salathe]

How about letting him choose?

[Kris]

I find it annoying writing code on one of my Macs as there isn't a # key, and I can never remember what the key-combo is to enter one. I suppose you could get used to this though if you use one every day. If it were me, I'd pick up a name brand laptop and install a Linux distro on it - There's a lot more to play and tinker with, especially for someone interested in taking those kind of courses.

[hackalive]

salathe I was looking more for brand reccomendations like Asus which I was thinking, as I am going to buy it for him

[KevinM1]

salathe I was looking more for brand reccomendations like Asus which I was thinking, as I am going to buy it for him

Here's what I'd do:

1. Let the kid spec out what he wants - processor, HDD, GPU, etc.  Make sure the kid bases these specs based on what he knows about the courses he'll likely take.

2. Go to various vendor sites (Asus, Dell, Toshiba, etc.) and price out a notebook with those specs.

3. Once you have a few options in a price range that's comfortable for you, visit review sites for reviews on those specific models.

4. Buy the one with the best aggregate reviews.

There's no bulletproof brand out there.  Instead, do your due diligence to ensure you get a good investment for your money.

[salathe]

A few (not an exhaustive list) of practical things:

• Enough RAM for running multiple virtual environments at the same time
• Plenty of space for multiple OSes (disk images, too), a tonne of HD movies, music and a stack of porn
• Long battery life (for wandering around all day with it)
• Comfortable keyboard (it'll get a lot of use)
  

I find it annoying writing code on one of my Macs as there isn't a # key, and I can never remember what the key-combo is to enter one.

On mine it's Option + 3, and the key combo is so engrained that I try to use the same key positions at work (on a normal, full size Microsoft keyboard with a dedicated # key (shared with ~)).

[hackalive]

Yeah I like this one http://www.asus.com.au/product.aspx?P_ID=SGVGxYEAKu15BCwA as it has 1TB hard drive, good looking keyboard, 1GB RAM GPU, just not sure about the battery life

[hackalive]

The battery only lasts about 2 hours :-( can always but spare batteries

[oni-kun]

The battery only lasts about 2 hours :-( can always but spare batteries

Take a look at the current laptops on bestbuy from around $700-1300 and see what modern laptops look and perform like? You'll get a lot more than 2 hours out of them.

The mac book pro may be a good (but albeit expensive) choice as it has an expensive OS where Linux is free, as in beer. I'd personally stick with the Dell or HP line, Asus tends to be dodgy with some of their products.

Remember, getting him a monster (like the laptop you listed) is an expense as he is using it for work, it will most likely cost too much to replace if stolen/broken and you don't need to be able to play Crysis when you're needing to work to get a degree.

[The Little Guy]

Your going to want at least 4 GB of ram.

[Tazerenix]

yea you should have at least 4gb RAM.

Try Compaq, there great

[Daniel0]

• Long battery life (for wandering around all day with it)

Mine only lasts about 2-2.5 hours I think. Unless you're one of those people who insist on playing games during lectures, that shouldn't be a problem.

But why not let your friend's son set the requirements? He is the one who is going to use it, and if he is going to study computer science it's likely he already knows stuff about computers and has an opinion on all the Windows/OS X/Linux stuff.

If it's purely for doing undergraduate CS things, you could probably get by with 1 GB of RAM, 80 GB disk space, on-board graphics card and low-end CPU. Any Linux distro would do fine with that, and if you choose a minimal window manager like xmonad you won't use a lot memory and GPU power on that.

Of course if he wants to do more than just that, there is no way that computer would be adequate.

Also note that computing power and battery life is often inversely proportional.

Bottom line: Ask him for his requirements, not us.

[oni-kun]

yea you should have at least 4gb RAM.

Try Compaq, there great

Not in for years has my 4GBs of RAM on my PC been eaten up, By heavy games with music and firefox with atleast a hundred tabs. Why would you specifically recommend a student get a notebook with that much in it? It's like telling someone to get an extended magazine size modded on a rifle for a hunting trip, It CAN be useful, less time to reload. But it's pointless. You're hunting animals.

EDIT: Daniel0 responded just before I did, He seems to get what I am trying to say, It's pointless to buy someting so expensive if it's simply not used.

[Tazerenix]

well if you want to run a decent OS your gonna need more than 1gb. To run vista you'll need at least 2 and same for windows 7. Otherwise it just runs terrible

[oni-kun]

well if you want to run a decent OS your gonna need more than 1gb. To run vista you'll need at least 2 and same for windows 7. Otherwise it just runs terrible

Most linux distributions don't even utilize sections of the RAM unless they are needed. Windows 7 is a decent OS, and it's ran fine on a 3GB RAM setup without ever going over the 1.2GB mark on load. Anything ran on it, be it Microsoft Office or Autocad for computer engineering has run on W95 w/ 512MBs DDR1-233 for decades, I don't think too much more is needed.